Trip to France (in more detail if anyone's interested)

[EuropeanNC30R...]

Sunday 4th July
The start of our trip, I rode to Mike's house in Shrewsbury for about 2pm. I then waited 2 hours while Mike packed , then set off for G's house in Reading. Luckily for us, G top bloke that he is, had let stop over for the night and even fed us. Fairly uneventful, but caught quite a bit of rain on the way down.

https://www.walesbikers.co.uk/gallery/albums/userpics/MauPics/france/normal_Jun13_03.jpg

Monday 5th July
We left G's at 4am to catch our Dover - Calais ferry crossing that was scheduled for 7am. We were doing fairly well for time until Mike informed me on the M25 he had approx 10 miles of fuel left and the next services wasn't for another 30 . Thus we had to leave the motorway and find a 24 hour garage. We came to a Sainsburies that opened at 6, too late for us but a kind lady gave us directions to a nearby Tesco extra

Now quite late, and on the M20 with 50 miles to go, headed off eventually arriving with not much time to spare.

We had booked the ferry tickets with SeaFrance way back in January, they were fairly cheap then at £56 each return.

Once aboard the ferry workers directed us to the side of the deck where our bikes were roped to a banister-rail type thing. Two other brits on ancient Harleys also joined us there.

The crossing took no time at all, and one overpriced breakfast later we were heading down the off-ramp into France. I'm very glad Mike was in the lead when we met out first right-handed roundabout, as I was so going to take it left . With Mike's famous (lack of) navigational sense we soon started heading the wrong way and got seperated. Not a major problem though as we both had mobiles. About 20 minutes later we were re-united and went via the back roads to a small town named St Omer, then through Arras eventually making our way to the Formule1 hotel in Reims. That was full, so ended up staying at a similar hotel next door for a couple more euro's.

The ride down through Northern France on the backroads was cool in that it let us see the countryside etc and let us get used to riding on the right. However, the roads were pretty boring, and very built up in the sense of constant 50kph zones. I'd recommend doing a few miles to get aquainted then jump on the autoroute as the N roads (equivalent of A-roads) are very hard going there. Also most road signs are geared towards getting you on the autoroutes so navigation can be hit and miss at the best of times. In France you have to learn to navigate via place names rather than road numbers.

Tuesday 6th July

Left Reims at the crack of dawn (midday ), taking the autoroute to Troyes then getting off to take the N74 (recommended by RiDE) towards Dijon. Very twisty and grippy, it's a fast undulating A-road affair. Some how we managed to get off this road and onto a mental B-road, one of the best roads I've ever ridden on. The sun was out, the road was hot and the surface was absolutely spot on.

Dijon was interesting to say the least, after a quick break I promptly got us lost in the suburbs for half an hour. Then trying to navigate through the city centre in rush hour I had an interesting (read nasty) experience with a 4-lane 'priority to the right' roundabout that had traffic signals. You'd think that if your lights went on green while you were on the roundabout you have right of way, not-so . Thankfully we somehow got to our exit in one piece

After we headed onto the autoroute and down towards Bourg in some fairly heavy rain. Waterproofs proved essential. As we left the autoroute on the Bourg pay-station I had a small front end slide on the slip-road, nothing major so thought nothing of it. As I was handing over the Euro's, Mike coasted up and pointed to his flat, and smoking, tyre. Bugger.

https://www.walesbikers.co.uk/gallery/albums/userpics/MauPics/france/normal_Jun13_06.jpg

As we began inspecting it for a hole a woman parked up in a Renault Megane with steam pissing out of the radiator and grass hanging out the bottom of the car. It seemed she had taken the corner I'd had a little slide on at pace and gone off the road, holing her radiator in the process.

It soon became apparent the valve was fucked, Mike rapidly starting to learn the benefits of having breakdown cover After a couple hours a recovery truck and a taxi turned up. The truck took the bike to a nearby recovery centre while the taxi took Mike to a nearby Ibis hotel while I followed. This was all paid for by Mike's breakdown company They even paid for my accommodation, excellent considering I was with another company and we would have been staying at a hotel there one way or another anyway.

To celebrate we each a nice cool French beer from the mini bar and watched the MotoGP highlights on tv. Bliss.

https://www.walesbikers.co.uk/gallery/albums/userpics/MauPics/france/normal_Jun13_07.jpg

Wednesday 7th July
Spent the morning in Bourg marvelling at low prices. I got a nice large steak and chips for the equivalent of £3.50, the supermarket was selling 24 small bottles of beer for the equivalent of £1.20.

The same taxi driver as last night arrived at 4.30pm to take Mike to the bike dealers where his bike was. He'd had to have a Dunlop D205 fitted as it was short notice, and a 70 profile one at that. The tyre looked bloody huge on the bike You'd have sworn it was a Massey Ferguson part-worn. Eventually we got away from Bourg at 5.30pm and cained it down the autoroutes to Grenoble

Once there it was onto the N85, a road CraigT19 has recommended to us and was rated as Performance Bikes 2nd best road in Europe. It was very quiet at this time, making it superb fun. I can't really think of the words to describe it, apart from 'Awesome'. We were on that for a good hour and a half, only had one close scare with a 5mph hairpin that came out of no-where. It was a proper stand it up on the brakes job for both of us As we completed the final descent to Gap through a series of downhill hairpins we got behind a superbly well driven Pug 406 that we were struggling to match for corner speed. It was only in Gap we realised it was a not-very-highly-marked car .

As we were carrying our stuff into the Formule1 hotel a couple sportsbikes were practicing proper balance-point wheelies on our road, very cool . First impressions of Gap were 'quite mad', further backed up by myself witnessing a scooter/car crash from our room's window the next morning. Luckily the rider didn't seem too badly hurt.

Thursday 8th July
This was our rest day, spent the day dossing about then got pissed on the town-centre's late bar during the evening. Top atmostphere too, we were the only Brits there yet people were very friendly and we even had a round of beers on the house - not bad for a first night

Friday 9th July
This day most of our photos were took. We rode up to (and just past) the Italian border. In short stunning scenery, great roads and how often do you normally get to hear/see a Ferrari 360M on full chat - top stuff and I'll let the photos do the talking.

https://www.walesbikers.co.uk/gallery/albums/userpics/MauPics/france/normal_Jun13_09.jpg

Oh yeah almost forgot, my bike lost all power then cut out. Initially I was worried about the NC30's achilles heel, the reg/rec as the battery was also dead. Fortunately it was just the ignition fuse that had gone. I'm not sure how the battery died but a quick (3 attempts ) bump start later it was fine.

https://www.walesbikers.co.uk/gallery/albums/userpics/MauPics/france/normal_Jun13_43.jpg

We had originally planned to stay 3 days in Gap, and had only allowed ourselves 2 days for the return trip. Having realised now this was a bit unrealistic, we left Gap a day early to start heading back without time worries. If I was to go again I'd definitely stay for longer, and factor in more rest days for the journey to and from.

Today was the first time we saw some other British bikers on the roads, quite a few at that too. We got as far as Dijon before spending an hour or so finding the Formule1. Damn the French's inconsistent road signing is all I can say on the matter

https://www.walesbikers.co.uk/gallery/albums/userpics/MauPics/france/normal_Jun13_48.jpg

Sunday 11th July

Took the twisty route back up to Troyes (but never found that b-road again), before autorouting it up to the Formule1 in Cambrai. Four other Brit bikers were staying there, 2 of which were Blades. They had the good idea of gaffer taping the tank and seat unit to avoid scratches from luggage.

Monday 12th July

https://www.walesbikers.co.uk/francebcf/Jun13_59-mod.JPG

It was raining pretty hard, so we spent the morning killing time, and the afternoon loading up with booze as our ferry booking wasn't until 11.45pm that night. In the end we got on the 7.30pm crossing at no extra cost - result. Started to miss France already

https://www.walesbikers.co.uk/gallery/albums/userpics/MauPics/france/normal_Jun13_62.jpg

And then it was a long, boring, mainly-motorway, ride home.

According to my trip and some rough maths I did 2147 miles, of which a fuse blew on my bike and the chain needed tightening every day. Though to be fair I knew it was on it's way out. Top marks to the bike, it performed virtually faultlessly and never let me down, always started first touch of the button In fact, it never used one drop of oil

For the most part of the trip we stayed in Formule1 Hotel's. These are very cheap, costing between 24-29 Euro's (£16 to £20) for a room that sleeps up to 3 people, 2 was about right though. They consist of a double bed, bunk bed, tv and mirror/wash-basin. Shared access to very clean showers and toilets. Breakfast is 3.5 Euro's (£2) per person, but is fairly basic consisting of bread/jam etc and a drink. Thanks to Keith for the recommendation, they are a very cheap way of getting around France. You can't go wrong for £8 each a night.

Hope that wasn't too boring.

More photo's at www.walesbikers.co.uk/gallery

[dibbster]

Sounds like a good trip!
Looking a the photos in Mike and your's posts there were some cracking roads....but where is the picture of the Ferrari?
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[byke95]

Sound like an awesome trip - makes sitting in front of my computer even more boring (if that is possible!)

(Green with envy, not 'you make me sick' )

[JonB]

That seemed like a brilliant trip, far better than any holiday I have ever been on. You must of had a bit of bum/back ache by the time you finished though!
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[Annabella]

Big vote of thanks to Maurice, without whom, I'm sure we would never have seen Mike again.


Sounds like you two had a really amazing time and I second byke with the with envy
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[Shaun]

Yeah maurice, nice one.

Count me in next year, I'll bring a flask.

[EuropeanNC30R...]

Oops I didn't manage to get a picture of the ferrari, I was too busy riding Seriously, if you weren't careful you could spend all day photographing the scenery over there - it's that good.

Have to admit when I overtook it (in traffic), I changed down a couple more gears that normal to give it the benefit of my V4

Here's a reproduction, courteousy of google....
https://www3.ocn.ne.jp/~omc/ferrari/gallary/modena_red/modena_red3.jpg


You get used to covering distance surprisingly soon. It took some motivation getting out of bed for the first couple days but after that it was fairly easy going.

[JimboJ]

It sounds and looks like you had fun! wish I could of done it or something similar. I'm guessing that french drivers aren't as blind as ours or are they?

James
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[EuropeanNC30R...]

The French drivers were pretty cool, 95% went out of their way to move to the side and let you past. I noticed one day that the only cars that didn't immediately move to the side had Dutch number plates

Also as a biker you get treated as a hero in France. Every passer by stops and looks at your bike, make comments etc.

[M1ke]

'je n'a pas l'VFR. Viva la cbr250

[Kickstart]

[skida]

That sounds like one hell of a trip. My turn next year!
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